An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

The less men think, the more they talk.

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

Have the mind of a swam, the heart of a lion, the tongue of a serpent, the flair of a swam, and the soul of a dove.

As long as our voiced were in harmony, it didn't matter that our accents were at war.

Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent.

If we do not try, we will not know.

I am persecuted because of my writings, I think, therefore, that I should write some more.

People will try to block you. Some will do it just for pure hostility. But most others are just afraid of themselves.

You're my favorite part of the day and every morning I look forward to seeing your face.

One of the great things is, you're never a producer unless you're making a movie.

I think Blank Generation holds up pretty well. You listen to that with headphones and there's a lot going on there with the guitars- it's the product of a lot of fighting.

What the hell am I doing here?